


Seizure

by DelilahBlueEyes



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Stargate Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Rushbelle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 11:10:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelilahBlueEyes/pseuds/DelilahBlueEyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during the episode “Seizure", in which Rush is in the Neural Interface chair. Belle is reading one of her favorite books when her night takes a turn for the absolute best, followed by the absolute worst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I want there to be a follow up to this that will be Belle-centric but this idea has been in my head for about a year and I’ve finally been in enough of “a mood" to wrap it up.

“From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”

“Good for you, Lizzie!” Belle murmured under her breath, shifting in the uncomfortable desk chair and pulling her left leg up under her. It’d been fine for the first hour or so, but the longer she sat there the more uncomfortably numb the lower half of her body became. As she shifted again the chair swiveling a bit as her knee bumped the console and she glanced up at her charge. He was absolutely still, only his steady breathing giving any indication that he was still alive, seated in the large chair at the center of the room. The blinding light beating down from directly above exaggerated the already harsh features of his face, shadows standing sharply out under his prominent cheekbones. It left him looking pale and emaciated, a corpse of a man restrained by two heavy cuffs of metal to the instrument of his demise. She refused to believe that it was a preview of what was to come.

Deciding to move about and stretch her legs for a bit, Belle stood and stepped toward the chair, circling around it slightly to the left. Dr. Rush. A complete enigma of a man. He’d held control of the ship in secret for who knew how long, he treated the rest of the crew like a bunch of invaders in his home and he badly needed a shave. And he was entirely amazing. As she circled the chair, she watched him, though she tried and failed to tear her eyes from his face. There was something that drew her in, something naturally charismatic and intense about him, even when he was unconscious. 

She’d lapped the room five times and just decided to return to her chair and her book when she heard an odd sound, a human sound. She paused to wonder just when her mind had begun to think of the hollow clangs and gentle hum of the ships engines as more commonplace than the sounds of breath and voice. The door to the bridge was closed and she was the only one awake this late. In the effort to know immediately when Rush awoke, Colonel Young had divided their day into shifts and left a radio by the door so he could be called quickly. Belle had volunteered to take the late night shift, knowing that it would be the only time she’d really get to see Rush completely calm, even if he was unconscious.

By the time she was standing just beside the chair, she could clearly hear the sound directly from its source, the supposedly unconscious Dr. Rush. His eyelids twitched sporadically behind his lids as a litany of small noises slipped from his throat. She leaned closer to decipher whether he was attempting to speak but his mouth did not seem to be able to coordinate to turn the inarticulate little murmurs into words. His breath was ragged, his chest rose and fell as if he was running and she grew concerned. Perhaps she should call Young or TJ. She herself had little medical knowledge beyond knowing how to stop bleeding and that a fever was a bad sign. 

Well, she could check for that easily enough. His skin sent a shock of tingles through her hand when she brushed it over his forearm, and it took more of her focus than she’d have liked to be able to ignore that and focus on the temperature of him. He was warm but not burning, which she thought was good. She knew she ought to call TJ but she couldn’t resist the urge to press her fingers to his throat, just into the hollow beneath his chin where she could see his pulse fluttering. The feel of his stubble scratching her fingertips made her legs shake as she began to count the pulse of blood under the thin layer of skin. It was purely an excuse to touch him, she knew, though she didn’t give up the illusion of legitimacy as she used her wristwatch to count his BPM and hope it was within the normal range. She’d been watching him for months, listening to his harsh words and hearing only the lush accent that carried them to her ears, even when he was berating her for some small offense. Her hand itched to drag up through the wiry hairs that covered his jaw and slip up into his hair, the change from rough to silken sure to make her sigh. But she kept herself in check as she finished counting, though she had no idea whether it was a good, steady heart rate or not. His hand twitched as she was pulling away and she dropped her hand to cover his without a thought, wanting with some sort of quiet desperation to sooth and care for him even (and especially) if he didn’t know it. 

His hand snapped back on his wrist so hard that she thought he might have fractured it and suddenly he was gripping her hand hard, his thumb and forefinger pinching her skin between then where they met. She gasped and tried to tug her hand away, ready to begin offering excuses to the surely furious man but found his eyes were still closed, flickering rapidly from side to side as he grunted. She could not free herself no matter how she pried at his steely grip and the radio was too far away for her to call for help, though she wasn’t sure at this point who really needed to be saved. She pinched the thin skin at the back of his hand, hoping it would startle him into releasing her or even waking up but he only gripped her tighter his shoulders twitching up toward his ears for a moment before they relaxed again. Was he having some type of seizure? Was there something she should do? She’d read once that a person afflicted with epilepsy could possibly injure themselves but she’d never seen this sort of reaction in the doctor before. 

As her unencumbered hand fluttered helplessly over him, it landed lightly at his shoulder and he opened his mouth and moaned. The timbre of the sound was all wrong, his voice husky and deep. It tugged at something deep down inside of her and sped her breathing. It sounded almost like…

“Dr. Rush?” she asked timidly, jostling him slightly with the hand still pressed to the rough fabric of his waistcoat. She knew it could not wake him. They’d tried everything from physical pain to threats to briefly blocking both his mouth and nose, though she’d put a stop to that little experiment almost immediately. 

His only response was a tightening of his grip and another throaty moan. She could feel the bones in her hand grinding together but any pain it may have caused was swept clean away by the realization that he was… he was… turned on.

“Harder,” he pleaded, his head attempting to crane itself back and his Adam’s apple bobbing noticeably as he swallowed hard. 

“Oh, god.” Belle would have sat down right there if she could reach the floor with her hand trapped in his grasp. Her mouth watered as she saw the pulse fluttering in his throat and she’d begun to lean forward to follow his instruction when the lurch of his hips thrusting up toward her arrested her attention completely.

“Please,” he whispered, followed by a groan forced through clenched teeth as his brows drew together and his hips twitched again. Belle felt her heart stutter and her breath flew out of her. Her hand on his chest clenched instinctively, twisting into the fabric of his shirt and she allowed her nails to scratch across his skin under the fabric. He made a choked sound and bucked up out of the chair, straining against his restraints. She felt a sweet burning excitement below her navel; something hot and curling and insistent. Her mind flashed a picture before her, a fleeting image of herself straddling him as much as possible in the chair and grinding and grinding against him until they both finished. Her hips twitched involuntarily at the idea but she forced herself to stand still, afraid still that he would come to at any moment and fling her away in disgust. Her eyes followed the supple movements of his hips as he twisted and turned in the chair, searching for pressure and friction that she was only too willing to give him. As she hesitantly raised one hand, though, to press against the tented front of his jeans, he increased his pace and left her enthralled by his sharp movements, the way the muscles in his legs bunched up tight, the sight of the tip of his tongue peeking out to wet the corner of his mouth. 

Just as the tips of her fingers ghosted over his straining erection, he gave a strangled shout and crushed her wrist in his grip. His hips seemed to stutter in their movement and she bit her lip to stifle her breathy sound when she saw the tell tale signs of wetness that meant he’d stained through his underwear with cum. A loud vocal part of her she’d never known before urged her to lean down and press her mouth there; to see if she could taste any trace of him through the thick denim. She’d almost decided to content herself with touching him, happy to have even the small memory of what he would feel like. His fingers unclenched, moments before the rest of him did and she realized she would be able to move away now, not sure if she was relieved or disappointed by that. Then his lips opened and he spoke the first word she’d heard from him since his eyes shut nearly a day and a half ago.

“Amanda,” he sighed.

Belle jerked away from him so hard that she stumbled further than she meant to and crashed into the door with a resounding hollow clang, turning and dashing through it when it opened with the image of those rough, perfect fingers stretching straight out toward her, his brow furrowed in frustration that she now realized had never had anything to do with her at all.


	2. Aftershock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle realizes something.

Belle shut her eyes and pressed her fingers hard into her temples. This headache had persisted through the morning and sent her reeling for a dark, deserted place to do her work but even the low lighting of the research lab sent sharp fissures of pain through her skull. The strings of numbers and letters on the page of her notebook had ceased to make even the small amount of sense that they usually did to her and she decided to admit defeat, dropping her face into her hands with a shuddering sigh. The work had been her dearest hope of forgetting and even that had failed her. Short of standing and smashing her head off the edge of the console she sat before, there was no way to forget. It was seared into her memory as surely as the feeling of a bullet burrowing through her flesh or of an unforgiving metal cuff slowly eating away at the skin of her ankle. In her mind, she could still feel every dip and whorl of every fingerprint, the scrape of every callus. In her mind his hand was still on her, was everywhere on her.

She’d gone to find the nearest living person that was not him to take over for her, claiming exhaustion. Chloe had fussed over her pallid complexion and obvious agitation until Belle had assured her she was just feeling a bit under the weather and slipped away as quickly as possible. Just minutes later had found pressing her back to the shower wall as she stood in the spray and slipping her fingers between her folds. She came twice in the showers, hiccoughing soft sobs and slipping on shaking legs. She’d redressed and stumbled to her room, stripping again to climb into bed and rub herself to another two quaking orgasms. Hot tears had rolled down her temples and each press of her fingers against slick flesh made her feel as though she were choking on her humiliation, but she couldn’t have stopped herself for the world. She lay staring out the window afterward, fingers stick and body sore from her own rough treatment. Her mind had still spun late into the night, unable to force the image of his hips twitching up toward her, of the obscene noises he’d made as he held her wrist as if it were the only thing keeping him sane. There was a stirring of heat in her belly at the thought and Belle pulled her knees to her chest, tears burning her face anew as she turned onto her side under her scratchy blanket.

She’d thought of home, of a sweet little garden behind her house and a peach tree that only ever gave her half bitter fruit. She’d thought of a home before that too, of warm tea and sleepy mornings spent beneath the covers together, of which she’d had far too few. Warm brown eyes, tired but kind. Not the same here, with him. He was always strained, always hurrying and shouting and pinched. Not like her true love, really, but still so similar it made her heart ache. And perhaps that was why she loved Rush now. Hot bile rose to the back of her throat when the word whispered across her mind, cutting her with the truth. She loved him. There was no denying it. Not after tonight, with thoughts of him still clinging to her mind and the evidence of her attraction still coating her fingers up to the third knuckle. Gods above, she loved him. It hurt to realize because in her mind she still heard those thin lips whispering Amanda as he loosened his hold on her. So she’d spent the night that way, tears flowing freely as the early morning hours turned into the time when she would have to leave her bed.

And now she was contemplating simply returning to her bed now. She had skipped breakfast and gone straight to the garden dome to continue tagging the newly flowering plants. She’d spent the morning there until Chloe had come to check on her, mentioning in passing that Dr. Rush had woken sometime early that morning and was raging and snarling like usual. After that, she’d picked any task that would have her tucked away out of sight. She could not expect the universe to grant her a lifetime of avoiding his presence (if they never returned home), but she would have asked just a day or two at least. Apparently even that was too much. The doors hissed open behind her and hesitant steps approached her.

“Ah, Belle?” Her body fought to shiver at the sound of her name wrapped up in that lovely, rough brogue and she sat up and smoothed her hair back.

“Um, yes?” she replied, picking up her notepad and jotting down a random sequence of signs and numbers, praying he couldn’t read it over her shoulder without the glasses he’d broken in half just days ago. “Do- do you need something?”

“Ah, well, TJ informed me that you were the one sitting with me for most of the night and- thank you for that by the way…” he paused and she nearly turned to see his face but her heart was already hammering sickeningly loud in her ears. “Anyway, I was wondering if… I mean, did anything…. odd happen last night?”

Her pen froze hovering over the page as her mind frantically scrambled to supply her mouth with words. No, nothing happened. Everything was ordinary. You didn’t move an inch. Damn it, say anything! He seemed to take her silence as a prompt for more information.

“I had some, er, pretty vivid dreams and I wondered if you noticed any outward sign of them?” It was a struggle not to laugh bitterly until she began to cry again. He would probably think her mad. Really, if she hadn’t known the truth of what happened he might have fooled her with the studiously light tone he spoke with. But she did know. “Anything at all?”

She did turn then, enough to see the green of his shirt and the anxious blur of his face in her peripheral vision. “Well, you seemed to be trying to speak at some point. I didn’t make out any- I mean… nothing happened.”

There was a beat of silence, only the ship humming gently around them before she heard sigh of relief that made her want to scream, though she’d no idea why. But then he stepped forward and placed his hand on her shoulder, thumb just brushing the side of her neck and the breath went out of her lungs. His touch was fleeting, his skin warm through her thin cotton shirt and her head began to grow light when she couldn’t catch her breath again.

“Thank you again, Belle. For watching over me.”

Then he moved away and the door hissed open and she laid her head down on the cool metal of the console and pressed her fingers into her eyes and tried not to cry any more.


	3. Early One Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle celebrates a special day...

_Early one morning,_  
Just as the sun was rising,  
I heard a young maid sing,  
In the valley below.

The rough singing was interrupted by a sharp hiccup and a throaty giggle that echoed down the deserted corridor. Belle covered her mouth with her forearm, grimacing when the strong scent of the alcohol in the bottle in her hand reached her. The stuff was harsh and pungent, more similar to jet fuel than the smooth liquors found back on earth, but it had done it’s job. Of course, it hadn’t allowed her to forget why she’d begun drinking in the first place. She still remembered where her room was, she remembered what her name was, and she remembered the day of the week. Well, if it hadn’t helped unburden her of her memories, it had at least given her a sense of macabre amusement over it all. She grinned and took another swig of Brody’s vile concoction and spun in a dangerous circle, tipping her head back to watch the gloomy ceiling dip and jerk above her.

 _Oh, don't deceive me,_  
Oh, never leave me,  
How could you use  
A poor maiden so?

She couldn’t remember where she’d first heard the song. Some pretty ditty her nanny had sung to her as a child, perhaps. Or something from one of the records she’d played in the pawn sh—No. No, it must be a song she’d heard as a girl. She drank and sang and laughed whenever her feet scuffed against the floor and nearly toppled her over. There was no one to disturb around her, no one for a mile at least. She could smash her bottle against the wall, dance across the broken glass and tear her feet to ribbons. She could paint pretty pictures on the cold metal floor until either the drinking or the blood loss caused her to lose consciousness. She could open her mouth wide and scream, and scream, and scream. But she didn’t.

Her bed was perfectly made up, just as she left it. She set the bottle down, managing not to topple it with clumsy legs when she leaned forward to tug back her blankets. She crawled into the center, the bottle tucked securely into her side and set her dizzy head down on the pillow. The shifting blue and purple lights that filled the room were much less magical now than they’d ever been in the beginning of her journey here. She blinked blearily over at her room’s tiny window and tried to remember the next line of the song. Something about a garden? I’ve pulled you from the garden? No, that wasn’t right. She shut her eyes and decided that she didn’t care after all. 

Sleep claimed her so quickly that she wasn’t sure at first that she was dreaming. Still in her bed, still on the ship, still unhappy. But her comforting bottle had been replaced with something far better- for the present at least. 

“You missed a verse.” The rumbling words were spoken somewhere beside her shoulder. She smiled without moving a muscle and made a questioning noise. “In the song. The next line was ‘Remember the vows that you made to your Mary’.”

He would like to nitpick her about silly things when they had so little time together. “Well, I never was the musical one was I, dear?”

“No,” he chuckled, and she thought she felt the familiar weight of his arms around her waist. “I remember more than one noise complaint when I left you alone in that ridiculous pink house.”

They fell into companionable silence for a while and Belle wished she had something to say to him. There was always something to talk about, in these few times they met now. It had been happening less and less frequently over the past year, and she feared the day was coming where her True Love would not be waiting for her when she shut her eyes. Even now, there was no warmth at her back. His voice lacked the rich quality it had held in reality. She was beginning to lose him piece by piece, and the thought of that more than anything else, terrified her. 

Her thoughts turned unbidden, to Rush. The arrogant, prickly man she’d found herself working with in the labs on Earth. It was his voice that had first drawn her attention. Then his eyes, and the way he always hesitated before speaking. There were so many things familiar about him, so many that marked him as similar to the man she knew before. There were differences too, heartbreaking, stark differences. The foremost being that he had not a thought to spare for her beyond basic human decency. 

The comfortable warmth in the air seeped away from her, the easy quiet hardening and sharpening until she was aware of each breath that rang like a gunshot between them. He knew. Of course he knew. This was a creature brought forth by her own imagination, and she’d always known him to be far too clever. She didn’t know anymore, if he held her or pulled away. She could not turn her head to see him until he spoke the words.

“You love him.”

The bed was behind her before she knew she’d stood and moved away from it. She shook her head and crossed her arms and crossed a room suddenly as long and desolate as a desert. The truth from her own mind, delivered in the cruelest way possible. Because if he knew, if she let him know and tainted that last bastion of peace and caring-

“You love him.”

She spun about to tell him to stop it, to let her be. And the room shifted around her, the world lurched sickeningly and the walls closed in about her. She was in the dungeon of the Dark Castle, and the snarling, crazed face of her True Love loomed before her. He took her by the arms and shook her, fingers digging into her skin when she tried to push him away.

“YOU LOVE HIM. YOU LOVE HIM. YOU LOVE HIM.”

He shouted at her, and he shook her and she couldn’t raise her voice above a whisper to beg him to forgive her and to understand. Of course she loved him. There had never been a choice but to love Rush. The nearly perfect carbon copy of her selfish sorcerer. Close enough to calm the nerves but never close enough to give her illusions any real substance. She would drive herself mad with loving him. 

Something small and white caught her eye, and she realized that the teacup- their teacup was held between two of his vicious claws, her blood smearing across the delicate porcelain.

“ _YOU LOVE HIM_ ,” he screamed, and dropped the cup.

Belle came awake with a shout, sitting up and leaning over the side of the bed to retch onto the floor. Her throat burned when she’d emptied her stomach, and the smell of vomit mixed with liquor to burn her eyes. The bottle had rolled off the edge of the bed and cracked, soaking into the edge of her blanket. She dropped her head into her hands and let the tears drip onto her crossed legs, watching them roll slowly over the rounded muscle of her calf, down onto the sheets or to pool in the hollow of her ankle. When her throat and stomach seemed unlikely to be able to bring anything else back up, she laid back and swallowed gingerly. Cold sweat covered her body and matted her hair against her neck, and her brain pounded in her skull. As her heart settled and she neared sleep again, she remembered what she’d wanted to say to him before she woke.

“Happy birthday, Rumple.”


End file.
